


child (proof)

by Nemainofthewater



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Don't copy to another site, Episode: s03e05 A Life in the Day, F/M, Family, Fluff, Gen, Love, M/M, Mosaic Timeline, Multi, Parents, all three of them are basically married, childproofing, eliot is an oblivious idiot, so sweet you'll get cavities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-22
Updated: 2019-03-22
Packaged: 2019-11-27 16:31:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18196616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemainofthewater/pseuds/Nemainofthewater
Summary: Mosaic timeline.Eliot, Quentin, and Arielle being parents. Feat. Eliot trying to be a good 'person-who's-not-a-parent-but-is-deeply-invested-in-this-family', cute baby Teddy, Arielle and Q not letting Eliot get away with this bullshit.Also with additional childproofing!





	child (proof)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ThebanSacredBand](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThebanSacredBand/gifts).



> For ThebanSacredBand who said that I couldn't write fluff.

Eliot things that he’s been doing pretty well.

 

When Q told him that he and Arielle were having a baby… Well he may have panicked a little. Slightly. Fine, a lot.

 

Who can blame him though? The last time someone was pregnant around him it ended disastrously, with fairies invading, a kidnapped daughter and a wife, who he was very fond of if not necessarily in love with, cradling a log. So if he spent a few hours or so down in the village drinking… It wasn’t the worst coping mechanism in the world.

 

(When he turned up at their house the next day, hungover and bleary-eyed and clutching a stuffed horse, neither Q nor Arielle said anything. They just accepted the present and presented him with a foul-smelling hangover cure.)

 

Nursing a hangover and listening to Quentin and Arielle laughing outside… Well Eliot resolved to do better. Be there for the family he had made for himself, even if he hadn’t been there for Fen.

 

And if he does say so himself, he’s stepped up to the plate most admirably. He spends eight months, when he’s not working on the mosaic, alternately finding the strangest of foods to satisfy Arielle’s cravings (liver and peaches? Fine, why not, not as bad as some of the things he’s eaten while high), talking Quentin through his weekly panic attacks (because let’s be real, anyone who can love like Quentin will have no trouble being a father), and surreptitiously picking up shifts at the bar down in the village so that he can save enough money to buy a proper crib for the imminent Coldwater-ling.

 

As Arielle gets larger and larger, Eliot adds nightly ankle massages to his routine, spending ten or twenty minutes just before bed making sure that Arielle’s swollen feet aren’t too painful. He remembers that Fen… Well. It seems to be a common problem in pregnant women.

 

When Teddy is born Quentin faints dramatically, just drops like a stone as soon as the screaming starts. Which fine, yes, there is precedence for this sort of behaviour and no doubt Eliot and Arielle will get years’ worth of teasing and guilt-induced nappy changes out of this moment, but at the time all Eliot can muster is a faint annoyance before hefting Quentin to lie on the mosaic outside, then getting back to his assigned task of water-boiling. Arielle comes from a family of scarily-competent women, none of whom think twice about bossing him around (former/future) High King or not.

 

Hours later, cradling the baby (that Q and Arielle made!) he’s hit with-something. A longing maybe. Was his daughter this energetic when she was born? Was Fray this small? Had she screamed this loudly? He holds the baby (Teddy, Arielle had said they were calling it Teddy if it was a boy) closer to his chest, staring into his blue eyes. Urgh. It was stupid and clichéd but…

 

“I would literally die for this baby,” Eliot says, “Well shit.”

 

He spends the next year or so of his life exhausted, mentally and physically because Teddy, having discovered his functioning lungs, now won’t stop using them. The three of them trade off on comforting him every night, but honestly their cottage is so small that any kind of loud noise, like say a _screaming baby_ , is going to wake them all up.

 

Coffee doesn’t seem to be a thing in Fillory. After an entire day of poking the same tiles over and over, and a near miss with the sketches of already-tried patterns and the cooking fire, Arielle declares a moratorium on mosaic work until they get at least six hours (consecutive) sleep each. Which doesn’t look to be any time soon.

 

Around month three, Quentin stops right in the middle of laying a tile, and stares at Eliot intently.

 

“You know you don’t have to prove anything to us,” he says.

 

“What?” Eliot asks, distracted. He’s trying to (unsuccessfully) carve a small wooden horse for when Teddy starts teething without chopping his fingers off, and it’s not going well.

He could use magic of course, but that somehow feels…like cheating.

 

“Everything you’re doing,” Quentin says, “I mean don’t get me wrong. I appreciate it. I know that Arielle does too. God knows that we couldn’t do this without you. But… You don’t have to run yourself ragged to prove that you’re a good father, or to like earn yourself a place in our family or something idiotic like that. You’re already family.”

 

Eliot stares at Quentin, feeling oddly exposed: when had little Q grown up?

 

“You’re overthinking again,” he says.

 

Quentin snorts.

 

“Yeah, sure, whatever you need to tell yourself man,” he says, “Just know that we don’t need proof of concept or anything like that. Everyone knows that you’re Teddy’s parent, as much as we are.”

 

Eliot doesn’t have anything to say to that.

 

Arielle is a lot less subtle.

 

She’s always giving him Teddy whenever he’s free: she claims that it’s because Teddy enjoys being high up, and that there must be some perks to living with a walking tree… But Eliot has his suspicions. The day that he fell asleep with Teddy nestled on his chest, there has been a lot of coo-ing sounds when he had woken up. Not all of which, he notes, had come from Arielle.

 

“You see?” she says one day watching him cook. Lord help them, but neither Arielle nor Quentin were any good in the kitchen. Arielle was likely to burn water (although she was good at making the Fillorian equivalent of sandwiches), and Quentin seemed to think that adding a shit tonne of salt to everything, including porridge, was adequate seasoning. That meant that Eliot was often the one making dinner in the evenings, at least if they wanted a hot meal.

 

“Are you and Quentin having some sort of enigmatic statement competition?” Eliot asks, tasting the stew (because that’s what you do if you don’t want to kill everyone’s sense of taste _Quentin_ ).

 

Arielle snorts, shifting slightly. Teddy gives a little grumble from where he’s sleeping on her stomach, tiny fist clutching her long braid.

 

“You can’t seriously be this obtuse,” she says.

 

“Hey, I’ll have you know that I’m a master at repression,” Eliot replies, placing a lid over the pot and leaving it to simmer. He makes his way over to Arielle, taking a slight detour to grab the pitcher of peach nectar.

 

Arielle rolls her eyes. Pulls Eliot closer to her.

 

“If you want to be that way,” she says, smoothly transferring Teddy to Eliot’s lap. He stirs slightly, but quickly goes back to sleep. She stands up with a groan, stretching until her back clicks.

 

“I’ll get the bowls out for the stew. You look after our surprisingly heavy son.”

 

“He is getting bigger, isn’t he?” Eliot says, “Before you know it he’ll be starting to walk.”

 

Arielle and Eliot freeze. Exchange a glance. Eliot stares around the cottage. The small, cluttered cottage with plenty of hiding spaces perfect for a baby to lose itself in. The splinters that could lodge in a baby’s soft skin and become infected. The fireplace that they avoid falling into on a day-to-day basis, never mind a baby.

 

“Umber’s tits,” Arielle swears.

 

“Yeah,” Eliot agrees, “This is going to take a lot of work.”

 

The next day, the three of them get Arielle’s mother to look after Teddy and get to work.

 

“I don’t suppose you know any spells that could make this easier?” Quentin asks.

 

“No Q, funnily enough I didn’t spend a lot of time in the parenting section of the Brakebills library.”

 

“Enough you two. Less talking, more working. We only have ten more hours.”

 

In the end Eliot does end up remembering some useful spells, such as Tilghman’s wood smoothening incantation, which means he’s quickly put to work scouring every inch of the walls, floor, and furniture for stray splinters.

 

(“Why can’t you do this again?” Eliot grumbles from his undignified position twisted half underneath the bed.

 

“Average student here, remember? I didn’t even finish my first year.”

 

“A likely story.”)

 

Finally, they all collapse onto the bed together, Eliot’s legs entangled in Arielle’s and Quentin’s arms flung dramatically over both of their faces. The cottage is as baby proof as it’s going to get, floors gleaming, a new metal gate erected around the fireplace and any other dangerous places a baby could potentially get into, and clutter mysteriously cleared away.

 

Eliot has no idea where it’s all gone. Maybe Q summoned a pocket dimension and stuffed it in there. Or Arielle dumped it all into a bonfire in the garden outside.

 

“Urgh,” he groans.

 

“Wait,” Quentin says, sitting up (to protests from the other two) and shuffling around until he can exit the bed. He returns a moment later, three glasses and a dusty bottle in his hand.

 

“I was saving this for a good moment,” he says, “The last of the wine.”

 

“Oh thank Umber,” Arielle says, snatching her glass and tipping it back.

 

“What? I haven’t had any alcohol for over a year. Now I’ve finally stopped breastfeeding I’m going to take advantage of it.”

 

“No arguments here,” Eliot says, reaching for his own glass.

 

“No!” says Quentin, swatting his hand away. He steals Arielle’s glass back and refills it.

 

“We’re doing this properly,” he says, handing the glasses back. He extends his own.

 

“A proper toast,” he says, “To family.”

 

“Family,” Arielle echoes, smiling at them both.

 

Eliot looks at them. These two stubborn idiots with no self-preservation instincts (though he’s one to talk) who would probably starve without him. Who’ve somehow wormed their way into his heart.

 

“To family,” he says.


End file.
